Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Back in October I was approached by several of my co-workers with the notion of creating a video along the lines of the intro to the movie Contact or Powers of 10. The video was to become the intro to a portion of the McDonalds / Avatar online promotional efforts.

The intro tells the tale of the first mission to Pandora. You travel from Earth, past Polyphemus and several of it's moons to just above Pandora and see the first exploration rover descending towards the surface of the planet. Once the intro finishes you are given the opportunity to explore the jungles of Pandora.

I did all of the 3D and Comping work for this piece. The planets were done in maya using textures from planetpixelemporium.com. The piece was finished in After Effects using Knoll Light Factory for the stars, and Particular for the flames around the pod as it hits Pandora's atmosphere.

As with the movie, it took MANY people making contributions to pull this site together. I was a huge undertaking and for some on the team represents more than an year and a half of work to push this one out the door.